Sports City

Since being abandoned this
sprawling, formerly elite sporting complex in Amman, Jordan has become a local
picnic spot.

Named after Jordan’s third monarch, King Hussein Sports City
sits crumbling in the center of Amman. Drained swimming pools, empty
gymnasiums, and miles of overgrown track lie nestled between two major
thoroughfares in the central neighborhood of Shmeisani. Peeling walls painted
with slogans entreating readers to behave in a sporting manner surround the
formerly pristine, top-of-the-line complex.

Instead of harboring the physical activity its name
implies, this decrepit monument to fitness now provides a venue for friends and
family to gather outdoors in dusty patches of shade. Officially or otherwise,
Sport City has come to provide much needed respite from the incessant
sight and sound of Amman’s traffic, thanks to its anomalous swath of
publicly-accessible land in Amman, where parks and public spaces are a
rarity.

The most popular pastimes include enjoying picnics or
smoking hookah – a far cry from the vigorous pursuits the nation’s top
athletes once undertook here. In fact, visitors to today’s Sport City expressly
seek out its arenas with the intention to avoid working up a
sweat. They simply want a place to chill away from life’s daily races.

After strolling through the complex, one is left
awestruck at the amount of capital the government once
poured into the infrastructure project. Yet it serves a more
important role to the citizens of Amman in its semi-abandoned state than it
ever did as a sporting complex.

Know Before You Go

Most of Amman's cab drivers will easily be able to easily
navigate to the entrance of the complex after being prompted with the phrase
"Sports City"